[OP1/ED1 — Filming complete]
[Ninja's Path, serialized anime version — Now live]
A few days of training and missions later, the opening and ending theme filming had wrapped up ahead of schedule.
Hanabi had just returned from a mission when the Stage notification appeared.
"Earlier than the Stage's estimated timeline."
From experience, the first episode of a broadcast generated significantly more popularity boosts than subsequent ones. She wondered whether a serialized anime would work the same way.
"It's already up?"
She opened the Dimensional Popularity Stage interface. A new playlist had appeared. The first episode was live on the platform.
The content of episode one wasn't too different from the live broadcast.
But as she watched, Hanabi noticed: certain scenes now had BGM layered in. Some cuts and angles had been replaced.
When it went 'officially live,' the Stage had clearly put the episode through a proper polish pass.
[Heard a lot about you]
[Missed the first episode when it aired, making up for it now]
[Hanabi my wife, I'm HERE~]
[Hanabi's white stockings—so small, so fragrant, heh heh heh]
[Too bad it's white stockings with geta clogs—no flavor]
[Right right right, the director doesn't get it, Hanabi should be in white stockings with BOOTS]
Barely a few minutes in, and Hanabi was already getting pelted by danmaku from the Devoted Enthusiasts faction.
During the live broadcast, Hanabi had tucked up the hem of her long kimono and turned it into a short one—revealing the white stocking suspenders—and the effect had been roughly equivalent to a nuclear detonation. Now that the anime had started airing, apparently the fallout hadn't dissipated.
"I am a beautiful young lady. Even in boots I wouldn't smell, thank you very much!"
Hanabi skipped the progress bar ahead.
In keeping with the conventions of the era, the OP and ED both ran consecutively after the episode proper.
Against a rousing, energetic rhythm, the image cut to a hillside at dawn.
"Isn't that the morning we all gathered on the first day?"
Naruto stood at the center of the frame. Hanabi was to his left, Sasuke to his right.
It was the scene from the first day of their mission, the three of them watching the sunrise together.
A perfectly ordinary moment—and yet there was an inexplicable sense of fate binding those three figures.
"Wait—where's Kakashi-sensei standing next to us reading Make-Out Paradise?"
Hanabi remembered Kakashi yawning right beside her, but he was nowhere in the frame. He'd been completely edited out.
"Come on!"
On that shout, the Ninja's Path logo appeared.
"Running without stopping, as if something is always chasing."
The moment the lyrics landed, the image tore apart—and revealed, unmistakably, Naruto and Sasuke being chased by a wild boar.
It synced perfectly.
The sequence continued: Naruto and Sasuke throwing everything at the boar and getting thrown right back, while up in the canopy Kakashi and Hanabi moved through the treetops.
Then a flash-cut back to the morning when they'd taken the mission.
No dialogue—but in just a few shots, viewers got the full picture: the main characters on a mission.
The editing was extraordinary. What was essentially just two boys getting chased by a pig somehow turned into a sequence that burned. And it all hit the beat.
Interspersed throughout were brief montage flashbacks—clearly intended to build the characters.
"Huh."
She was surprised to find footage of her late-night conversation with Sasuke cut in.
In the darkness of the training ground, Sasuke watching Hanabi practice.
Alongside it: Kakashi standing at the memorial stone. Naruto alone, looking out at something in the distance.
The OP closed on Naruto sending the boar over the waterfall, then dangling upside-down—caught by a red rope around his ankle. As he's hauled up, Sasuke reaches down and offers his hand. Naruto stares for a moment, then grabs it—pulled up and laughing, and the two exchange a smile. Behind them both: Hanabi and Kakashi.
The ED came after.
Unlike the ensemble OP, the ending was almost entirely Naruto's—solo scenes, quiet and solitary. Hanabi's part hadn't changed much overall. The main change: in the final shot, Sakura's usual spot had been filled by Hanabi.
Hanabi recognized it—the scene from the second day, Naruto lying in a field after weeding duty, Hanabi calling him to wake up.
"Editor—you deserve an extra meal. I, Hanabi, hereby declare you the greatest editor alive."
The OP's direction was completely different from anything she'd imagined, but the way it locked to the beat—the way those montage flashes were woven in—it was genuinely stunning. A real production.
More than that: Naruto's reckless but quick-witted unpredictability, Sasuke's controlled precision, Hanabi's own unhurried composure, Kakashi perpetually coasting. All of it came through clearly on screen.
And those montage flashbacks—cutting in at precisely the right moments—told viewers there was something more behind each of these characters. Stories still hidden.
"I wonder what kind of editor the Stage finds."
Hanabi was genuinely curious who was doing the cutting.
"Popularity points—definitely up."
After watching the themes through, she checked her numbers. They were rising continuously, ticking upward in real time.
The comment section and danmaku had expanded noticeably too, with new regional feeds appearing.
[So beautiful wwww]
[Hanabi-san, please allow me to be your dog]
[Who fights in a furisode kimono—though Hanabi-san does make it look elegant]
[I would love to see Hanabi-san in a Taimanin suit wwwww]
The danmaku in the Japanese feed wasn't particularly focused on Naruto—every time Hanabi appeared on screen, the comment density visibly spiked.
English danmaku was sparser overall, but the written comments were noticeably more numerous. Most of them were explaining what a ninja was to other readers, with some expressing surprise that the ninjas in Ninja's Path didn't match their expectations.
Because Naruto had arrived twenty years late in this world, the common conception of 'ninja' here seemed to be stuck at the more mythologized, traditional image.
"The market expansion strategy was the right call."
Hanabi's popularity had been sitting at tens of thousands of points. After this wave, it broke a hundred thousand in one go, climbing to around a hundred and ten before leveling off.
Impressive results.
"Which means—the etiquette course and the advancement test are both now within reach~"
Advancing out of 'extra' was the top priority, but sharpening the blade before cutting was always wise.
First, resonate with Jingliu. Practice the sword. Then pick up that acting training course.
"Resonance first."
Hanabi lay down on her bed.
These dream-state resonances no longer caused any disturbance to her surroundings—probably a side effect of the earlier localization upgrades. So going to sleep at home was enough to initiate the resonance now. Convenient.
"You're here."
She opened her eyes and Jingliu was standing across from her.
"Yes, Master." Hanabi gave a respectful bow.
"No need for formality. I told you—if you want to learn my swordsmanship, I'll teach it. Nothing more to say. Begin."
Jingliu tossed a sword to Hanabi. Hanabi said nothing more and followed immediately.
This once-every-seven-days training session. She wasn't about to waste a moment of it.